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Linfield activists get on the bus for a sustainable future

Linfield graduates are making news as they head across the country in a brightly painted, carbon-neutral school bus, dubbed the Self Express.

Powered by waste vegetable oil, the refurbished 1989 school bus will serve as a prototype for alternative transportation and communal living for the summer. The group will join activists at key climate movement events and volunteer in communities they pass through.

“We’ve all been blessed with the opportunity to go to college and receive an education,” says recent graduate David Kellner-Rode ’11. “I think we have an obligation to share what we’ve learned. It’s a two-way transfer of knowledge. We’ll learn from the people we meet, and we hope they’ll learn from us.”

The students bought the bus in Portland, Ore., for $2,200, and have invested more than 1,000 hours in its restoration, creatively designing it with both functionality and self expression in mind. The local community has also invested in the project, helping paint the bus, contributing labor to build the unique fuel system, and donating waste vegetable oil and materials for the tour.

“I’m really interested to see what’s going on in our country,” says Katie Kann ’11. “I’m tired of only hearing about the negative things in the news. I want to see the good things that fellow citizens are doing to help people and improve the quality of life across our country.”

The travelers include student Lucas Cook ’13, graduates David Kellner-Rode ’11, Katie Kann ’11 and Duncan Reid ’10, and their friends Corina Torgeson, Sean Sparks and Ryan Irvin. They departed from McMinnville on June 23.